AG&M 2014: Motivation

Research in robot grasping has experienced a massive shift in recent years. Early research into the field focused on synthesizing grasps analytically, using precise and accurate models of the objects to be grasped. Although these approaches are well-suited for grasping objects in industrial scenarios, such as on an assembly line, they are not easily applicable to unstructured environments like households or hospitals.

During the past fifteen years, grasping research has shifted to methods that can cope with novel objects and partial/noisy perceptual data. The challenges posed by grasping in these situations have led to the development of a wide range of new algorithms for selecting, executing, and evaluating grasps. In parallel to the progress made on the software level, new robot hands and sensors have also been designed for operating in everyday environments.

The first aim of the workshop is to report progress in the large variety of grasping and manipulation methods. The second aim of the workshop is to discuss the increasing difficulty in comparing the practical applicability of all the new algorithms and hardware that appear each month. Comparing different methodologies in a fair manner is difficult. The success of a grasp depends on many factors, such as the type of robot hand/gripper, the immediate environment around the object, and the properties of the objects being grasped. Different methods might also assume different prior knowledge regarding the object, or rely on the robot being equipped with certain sensors. The lack of suitable means of comparison has become a serious concern. The workshop will serve as a platform to discuss the role of benchmarking in grasping and manipulation. In particular, we will animate a discussion on the pros, cons, benefits and pitfalls of benchmarking via a periodic community-organized grasping/manipulation challenge.

Invited Speakers

Pieter Abbeel (University of California, Berkeley)

Oliver Brock (TU Berlin)

Nicholas Hudson (JPL)

Manuel Lopes (INRIA Bordeaux Sud-Ouest)

Toru Omata (Tokyo Institute of Technology)

Robert Platt (Northeastern)

Ashutosh Saxena (Cornell University)

Program

The workshop will take place on Saturday 31st of May 2014. The program of the day is as follows:

Session 1: 9:00–10:30 (1:30 hours)

9:00–9:30: Keynote

Learning to Manipulate from Demonstrations through the Use of Non-Rigid Registration
Pieter Abbeel (University of California, Berkeley)

Call for Contributions

The workshop will be held on May 31 as part of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2014) in Hong Kong, China. We warmly welcome the submission of extended abstracts of 1-2 pages on novel work or work in progress.
Abstracts will be (single-blind) reviewed on the basis of relevance, significance, and clarity. Accepted contributions will be presented as posters during the workshop. The authors may also be given the chance to additionally give a short spotlight presentation of their work. The workshop proceedings will be published online, on the AG&M website.

Authors are encouraged to submit a live demo or a video showcasing their work. Accompanying videos can also be uploaded via the submission system. We accept the following formats: MPEG-1 stream within a .MPG container, or MPEG-4 stream (H.264 recommended) within a .MP4 container. The maximum file size is 20MB.